Help: Popping sounds in my recorded mixes

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-- Help: Popping sounds in my recorded mixes

Posted by hardcore trancer on Feb-08-2011 05:09:

Help: Popping sounds in my recorded mixes

I would like to get some help on this problem of mine. I've been noticing this for a while now and I've tried everything that I can think of to resolve this but no luck yet.

First let me tell you what my equipment is:

1) Xone:4D
2) Apple Macbook 13.3" 2.16GHZ with 2.5GB of ram
3) Trakor 1.2.4

I record my mixes into my desktop which runs on the Creative X-FI sound blaster that comes with an external console and I use the stereo input and record my mixes with the Creative smart recorder.

You can have a listen to my latest mix and you will hear the popping sound more than a few times in the set. I know from many testing�s that it is not the individual tracks and I've played those same tracks when I'm not recording and never hear the popping sound.
I have a few possible reasons as to where this popping sound could be but not 100%.
The Macbook isn�t exactly the newest or the fastest but 2.5GB ram should be enough to just run Traktor. My guess is that it can be the sound card on my desktop computer but again these are all just my guesses.
During the set you can just go to the minutes below to hear the popping noise:

48:19
48:27
48:59
53:15
76:21
76:26
76:34
76:43

Any help or suggestion would greatly be appreciated.

Mystic Mind - Freedom Of Expression 02 by Mystic_Mind

Cheers.

Posted by pozz on Feb-08-2011 09:01:

@48min19sec - sounds like something is skipping/lagging/another track coming in for 1 beat?

@48min27sec&59sec it sounds like you are knocking a cable and making it wiggle.

@53min15sec i can hear another track coming in off beat for the next minute, not sure what the pop is part of, but could be related. you remember trying to cue the next track at this point?

@76min the noises sound digital. lag?

sorry i don't have a specific answer for you

Posted by ambient_chris on Feb-10-2011 16:18:

do you use keylock???

this used to cause popping issues on earlier versions of traktor, not sure if there is a fix for it.

Posted by hardcore trancer on Feb-10-2011 17:57:

quote:
Originally posted by ambient_chris
do you use keylock???

this used to cause popping issues on earlier versions of traktor, not sure if there is a fix for it.

I do use it actually. i will try to disable and see how it goes.. and you are right there doesnt seem to be any fixes to this.

Posted by ambient_chris on Feb-10-2011 18:51:

there could well be a fix but Im not sure. I did have this problem but strangely managed to fix it by plugging my sound card into the usb port that is closest to the back of the macbook. I have two usb ports on my laptop and noticed the popping when I plugged it into the one closest to the front. Maybe an issue with the power distribution between the usb ports in my case. But in most cases it was known the be a bug with the keylock algorithm

Posted by hardcore trancer on Feb-10-2011 19:08:

quote:
Originally posted by ambient_chris
there could well be a fix but Im not sure. I did have this problem but strangely managed to fix it by plugging my sound card into the usb port that is closest to the back of the macbook. I have two usb ports on my laptop and noticed the popping when I plugged it into the one closest to the front. Maybe an issue with the power distribution between the usb ports in my case. But in most cases it was known the be a bug with the keylock algorithm

Thanks for your help again sir. I will try to use a different USB port on my MAC and I will also turn off the keylock for a while and see how it goes. Turning off the keylock seems to be helping in some cases..

Posted by lounger540 on Feb-11-2011 20:45:

quote:
Originally posted by ambient_chris
there could well be a fix but Im not sure. I did have this problem but strangely managed to fix it by plugging my sound card into the usb port that is closest to the back of the macbook. I have two usb ports on my laptop and noticed the popping when I plugged it into the one closest to the front. Maybe an issue with the power distribution between the usb ports in my case. But in most cases it was known the be a bug with the keylock algorithm

This is a known issue with Macbooks, and probably many other systems. The USB channels are shared by the internal devices (touchpad, keyboard, isight) and USB is a shared system. So if you hook up to the wrong port and your machine is under load and the other devices are holding up the pipeline you can get a delay stutter on the USB audio device.

If you google there's an article somehwere (I think maybe djtechtools) that lists which are the best ports for different MacBook models

Posted by hardcore trancer on Feb-11-2011 20:58:

quote:
Originally posted by lounger540
This is a known issue with Macbooks, and probably many other systems. The USB channels are shared by the internal devices (touchpad, keyboard, isight) and USB is a shared system. So if you hook up to the wrong port and your machine is under load and the other devices are holding up the pipeline you can get a delay stutter on the USB audio device.

If you google there's an article somehwere (I think maybe djtechtools) that lists which are the best ports for different MacBook models

Hmm that is very interesing. I will google it up right now.